PhD Oral Defense: Understanding and Modelling Moss Carbon Dynamics in Black Spruce Forests
PhD Oral Defense of Kelly Ann Bona, Department of Natural Resource Sciences
Mosses play a key role in the carbon (C) budget of black spruce forests, which are widely distributed across Canada and throughout the circumboreal region. Mosses are currently not included in the forest C stock accounting of large-scale national models used by Canada to meet international greenhouse gas reporting requirements. It is therefore essential to increase our scientific understanding of the dynamics of moss-C accumulation in black spruce forest ecosystems in a national-scale context.
This thesis was inspired by Canada’s national-scale carbon accounting model, the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3). The overall objective is to improve scientific understanding of the C dynamics of mosses in black spruce-dominated forests from the perspective of including them in nationally-scaled models such as the CBM-CFS3.